How to Learn Better & Create Your Best Future | Tim Ferriss

1. 0:00 – 4:08

   Tim Ferriss

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. (instrumental music) I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today my guest is Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss is an author, a podcaster, an investor, and is known for having a near-supernatural ability to predict the future, which has allowed him to obtain success in a huge number of different endeavors. For instance, he is a five-time number one New York Times best-selling author. But, perhaps equally or more important to that, he's also exceptionally good at teaching people how to write, the entire process of writing and marketing a book. His books The 4-Hour Chef and The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek not only explain his own exploration of how to optimize and prioritize his time and learn particular skills, but he teaches you those skills as well. This is really what sets Tim apart. He is an exceptional learner and an exceptional teacher, and today you'll learn why that is, and, in a characteristic Tim Ferriss way, he explains the process in a way that you can apply it. He lists out, for instance, the specific questions that you should ask when approaching any endeavor in order to get the information that you want and to make the process of learning and getting better at something and achieving great success in something that much more likely. That ability that Tim has to identify the specific questions that one needs to ask and answer, and the specific action steps to take in order to achieve success, is really what I believe sets Tim apart from everyone else on the internet or on the bookshelf that's giving advice as to how to become good at something. Tim Ferriss is also dedicated to various philanthropic efforts, the most recent of which is the donation of several millions of his own dollars to research on psychedelics for the treatment of otherwise intractable psychiatric challenges, such as major depression, suicidal depression, eating disorders, and addiction. And he's also brought together other philanthropists, which has really galvanized the whole field of psychedelic research for the treatment of mental health, transforming it from what was recently kind of a fringe area of science to a mainstay that's actually funded not only by philanthropy but by the National Institutes of Health. So he's really transformed this entire scientific field into one that now is transforming the laws around psychedelics and is providing mental health treatment for people that would otherwise suffer. Today's discussion was a particularly meaningful one, because not only is Tim a pioneer in the world of podcasting, but it also marked the nine-year anniversary of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Tim is known for being able to see around corners, or predict the future. He really does seem to be about five if not 10 years ahead of everybody else in thinking about tools for optimization in particular domains of life. And so we were very fortunate that during today's discussion, he shares with us his current creative endeavors and how he's thinking about and approaching those. And he also breaks down for us the process of how to think about and prioritize one's schedule, not just on the order of the day, not just on the order of the week, but really thinking about one's life as a journey and how to organize and go about that journey. So today's discussion will provide with you tremendous insight into who Tim Ferriss is and how that incredible mind of his works in order to do all the amazing things that he's done, and, of course, he teaches you how to do it. He will tell you the exact questions that you should ask and that you should answer, and how to step back and think about those questions and then prioritize so that you can decide how to best invest your time. I'm sure many of you are familiar with The Tim Ferriss Show. However, if you're not already subscribing to The Tim Ferriss Show, I highly recommend you do. I still go back and listen to early episodes of The Tim Ferriss Show, and I'm a weekly listener to the new episodes. We provide a link to The Tim Ferriss Show in the show note captions. Also in the show note captions, you'll find links to Tim's many New York Times best-selling books and a link to his excellent weekly

2. 4:08 – 7:43

   Sponsors: Maui Nui, LMNT, Levels

   1. AHAndrew Huberman4:08

      blog. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Maui Nui Venison. Maui Nui Venison is the most nutrient-dense and delicious red meat available. I've talked before on this podcast about the key importance of striving to get one gram of protein per pound of body weight. And when one strives to do that, it's also important to maximize the quality protein-to-calorie ratio. In other words, you don't want to consume a lot of extra calories in order to get your quality protein. Maui Nui Venison, in having an extremely high-quality protein and nutrient-to-calorie ratio, allows you to do that very easily. And in addition to that, Maui Nui Venison is delicious. I particularly like their bone broth, which has an unmatched 25 grams of protein per 100 calories. I also love their ground venison and their venison steaks. All of them are absolutely delicious. If you'd like to try Maui Nui Venison, go to mauinuivenison.com/huberman and get 20% off your first order. Again, that's mauinuivenison.com/huberman to get 20% off. Today's episode is also brought to us by LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need, that is the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, but nothing you don't, which means no sugar. It's critical that we get electrolytes, because every cell of our body, but in particular our nerve cells, our neurons, rely on electrolytes in order to function properly. With LMNT, it's very easy to ingest the correct ratios of electrolytes. They come in these little packets. They're really delicious. You mix them up with anywhere from 8 to 16 to 32 ounces of fluid. I like mine pretty concentrated, so I'll drink a 16-ounce glass of water with LMNT in it when I first wake up. I'll also consume another one of those maybe 32 ounces with one packet when I exercise, and maybe another one if I happen to sweat a lot during exercise or if I was in the sauna and sweating a lot if it's a very hot day, et cetera. If you'd like to try LMNT, go to drinklmnt, that's L-M-N-T, .com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with your purchase. Again, that's drinklmnt, L-M-N-T,.com/huberman.Today's episode is also brought to us by Levels. Levels is a program that lets you see how different foods and activities impact your blood glucose levels, or blood sugar levels, as they're sometimes referred to. With Levels, you can see how the specific foods you eat, when you eat, and exercise, as well as any other activities impact your blood glucose and how those affect things like your energy level or your quality of sleep, or your level of clarity and focus for mental work, or your physical output for physical endeavors. I first started using Levels about a year ago as a way to understand how different foods and activities impact my blood glucose levels, and it's really impacted my entire schedule. In fact, I've shuffled a number of things around such that now I have more stable energy throughout the day. Yes, I eliminated one or two foods. Fortunately, they weren't my favorite foods. I've also added some new foods to my nutrition program that have allowed my blood sugar levels to s- remain much more steady throughout the day, and to achieve better sleep at night. Levels even provides a simple score after any meal you eat, so you can see how different foods affect you and develop a personalized nutrition program that's exactly right for you, and that's really what Levels e- is about. It's really about tailoring things to your specific needs. So if you're interested in learning more about Levels and trying a CGM yourself, go to levels.link/huberman. Right now, they're offering an additional two free months of membership. Again, that's levels.link/huberman. And now for my discussion with Tim Ferriss.

3. 7:43 – 15:22

   4-Hour Body & Development Mindset

   1. AHAndrew Huberman7:43

      Tim Ferriss.

   2. TFTim Ferriss7:44

      (laughs)

   3. AHAndrew Huberman7:45

      I am nothing short of thrilled to have you here. I've been reading your books, reading your blogs, listening to your podcast for a very long time, and in preparing for today, I was thinking, you know, who does Tim remind me of? 'Cause I knew you reminded me of somebody.

   4. TFTim Ferriss8:04

      (laughs)

   5. AHAndrew Huberman8:04

      But I didn't know who. And then I realized it, you remind me of the neurobiologist, Ramon y Cajal. You don't look anything like him. He doesn't look anything like you. Uh, he was a brilliant scientist. He won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for essentially describing the structure of the nervous system. He was the first, along with another guy, to define synapses, like this fundamental connection in the nervous system. But the reason that you remind me of Cajal is that it's a well-known, or not so secret secret in neuroscience, that if you want to pick a really excellent project to work on, you simply go and look at what Cajal talked about or hypothesized, and then you work on that.

   6. TFTim Ferriss8:49

      Hm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman8:50

      You know, he had this almost, um, supernatural ability to look at fixed stained tissue of the nervous system, much of it is incredibly beautiful, by the way, and think about how it worked when it, it was alive, and he's considered the greatest neurobiologist of all time, without question. And it's really this feature of being able to, like, see around corners or into the future that establishes that link for me. It's, it's absolute truth that if you look back to what you were doing 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the kinds of things you were doing, the kinds of questions you were asking, that translates to much of what people like myself and people in the fitness space, tech space, investor space, mindfulness space, psychedelic space, all these different arenas, what they're doing now.

   8. TFTim Ferriss9:40

      Hm.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman9:41

      So, um, it's not hyperbole to say that you are the Ramon y Cajal of all those different spaces, and podcasting, of course, uh, is one of those. So I owe you a great debt of gratitude, and many others do as well. So my first question for you is, what was your mindset around the time that you wrote 4-Hour Body, 4-Hour Workweek, but in particular 4-Hour Body? Because the protocols in that book are s- so very useful. They were at the time it was published, they still are now, and so many of the things like ice baths, the discussion around brown fat thermogenesis, um, resistance training in its, uh, you know, kind of basic form of just providing pr- enough progressive overload to get an adaptation, not excessively long workouts, weight loss, low carb diet, um, and on and on and on. W- what were you thinking at that time? Like, w- what... If you can think back to then, like, what, what were you foraging for? Uh, what were you thinking about when you woke up in the morning? Thinking, oh, I'm going to go find all this stuff that at the time was really esoteric.

   10. TFTim Ferriss10:47

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman10:47

       'Cause it has all played out very well. Um, what I'm basically saying is, if you want to know what's going to be happening hot and useful in 5 years, 10 years and onwards, just look at what Tim's doing at any moment. So there it is.

   12. TFTim Ferriss11:03

       (laughs) Well, thank you for the very generous comparison and intro. I'm thrilled to be here, so thanks for having me. And the 4-Hour Body represented an opportunity for me to do a few things. The first was to diversify my identity from outside of the realm of the, say, business category. So it was a deliberate move. Since the success of the first book, book bought me permission to do something else that publishers would still want to gamble on. I wanted to see if I could maybe, like a Michael Lewis, take my audience with me to other topics. So that was a lateral move that was very deliberate from a, a career optionality standpoint. And then I was doing I think what I've done for a very long time and what I enjoy doing, which is looking at the most prevalent beliefs and maybe dogmatic assumptions in a given field. Could be anything. If anyone says always, never, should, I pay attention and take note of that. They may very well be right. But if anything is said in absolutes, I like to stress test, and in the case of say physical performance or physical manipulation, tracking, 2008, 2009 was a very interesting time because a number of different technologies were coming online, meaning.... being adopted by small groups, you had the very early stages of, say, accelerometers as wearables. You had a number of different innovations and means of tracking that had never been available f- before. You had, for instance, and this took a b- a ferreting on my side, it wasn't immediately on the roadmap for The 4-Hour Body, but continuous glucose monitors. At the time, that was, I wanna say, ex- exclusively limited to type 1 diabetics, or maybe type 2 diabetics, but largely type 1 diabetics. And what captured my interest, and I can't recall how I came across it, but it was probably through the very earliest iterations of what later became the quantified self-movement. And I remember attending the very first gathering at Kevin Kelly's house in Pacifica, California. This was, this was around 2009, 12 people, 13 people, to discuss quantifying health. But the, the example of a professional racecar driver, I can't remember the, the form factor, whether it was F1 or NASCAR or other, who was using this continual glucose monitor for paying attention to glucose levels while driving. And I thought to myself, would that not be useful for healthy normals? Would that not have other applications? 'Cause if this, if this is being used by a high performer in this type of context, might it have other types of applications? Which then led me to use the very early (laughs) versions of Dexcom, which were really painful to implant. No longer the case. Of course, that's changed a lot. And I wanted to see how I might be able to find a handful of different categories of things. There's the new, like the genuinely new, like CGM at that point was genuinely new. The very old that might have some room for scientific investigation, and I would say, when I say scientific, I don't necessarily mean randomized control trials at a university. I do think, as an N of one, if you think about study design, and you can even blind, you could even placebo control, and I knew people in the small subculture of quantified self who did this. You can, I think, approach things in a methodical way where you can make a lot of progress in trying to determine causality or, or lack thereof. Looking at very old things, looking at orphaned things, so for instance, there are many examples in the world of doping where you have, say, BALCO back in the day, where famously, Barry Bonds and others purportedly used things like the cream and the clear, and these were based on anabolics that were sourced from Soviet literature or older literature from the '50s and '60s, that might not be on the radar of, say, the anti-doping, uh, groups that would administer the testing. So

4. 15:22 – 20:06

   Origins of Good Ideas

   1. TFTim Ferriss15:22

      all of these different buckets were of interest to me, and I begin where I usually do, which is interviewing folks. So I would interview one or two people in a given field, and I might ask them any number of questions. So one is, what are the nerds doing on the weekends or at night? This is also really good for investing. It's like, all right, what are the really technical nerds doing at night or on the weekends after they've put in a really long workday or workweek? Let's take a really close look at that. Another one is, and I'll, I'll create a flow for this, but what are rich people doing now that everyone or tens or hundreds of millions of people might be doing 10 years from now? And an example of that would be, let's just say full-time assistant, virtual assistant, AI, right? So we've seen the needs and wants being addressed by different technology, but it's an iteration of the same thing on some level. In the case of, say, using ChatGPT tied into Zapier for various functions. And then where are people cobbling together awkward solutions? So where are people piecing together awkward solutions, and is there room for some type of innovation there? These are a few of the questions that I would not only ask myself, but ask experts in different areas. So if I end up spending time, say, this was a few years prior to writing The 4-Hour Body, I spent time at NASA Ames and was interacting with a number of scientists, some people who were working on all sorts of biological tests and looking at genomics, and had a very frank discussion about where they thought if they had to push, right? So I'll ask questions like, "Push a little bit into the realm of science fiction and speculation, because I'm sure you can't support any type of projection like that with the literature, with scientific literature, but what do you think some of the risks are of, say, publishing your genome?" 'Cause at the time a number of high profile folks had just made their full genomes available, and they're like, "Well, I think in the near future it would be possible to reconstruct someone's face based on their genetic data." And they're like, "High degree of confidence." Like, "0 to 100%, how confident are they?" "Yeah, 80, 90%." I'm like, "Okay, I should pay attention to that, because if you're making your data available, let's just say, and it's anonymized per se, you still might be identifiable." So it's like, okay, that raises some interesting questions. Like, okay, well then how might you get around that? How might you put in safeguards so that you are the one and only keeper of your data, so to speak? Uh, brought up all sorts of targeted weaponry, uh, bi- sort of bio-weapons possibilities that I was interested in. And then I would ask that person who's clearly, like, willing to step outside of the box of whatever he's working on day to day, "Who are two of your close friends or two thinkers you really pay a lot of attention to who are kind of at the bleeding edge of something and unorthodox?" And then I would just continue to have these conversations over and over again. And the, the, the-... the s- the stream of development that I paid a lot of attention to is something along the lines of the following. So, th- the- the- the very beginnings are usually in some type of extreme case, and I think the extremes ... and this goes for product design as well but the extremes inform the mean, but not vice versa. So you can actually learn a lot by studying the edge cases. So, race horses, for instance. Uh, you'll often see things start with, say, race horses, uh, or people with wasting diseases, for instance, or any type of chronic or terminal illness who are willing to try some more experimental interventions. Then, let's just take one step further, body building. See a lot of interesting behavior in body building and high-level athletes, then billionaires, then rich people, then the rest of us, right? So my assumption is and was for The 4-Hour Body that along the lines of William Gibson's quote, you know, "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." So I'm never predicting the future. I'm just finding the seeds that are germinating that I think are going to bloom and end up spreading really, really widely. Uh, so that's- that's- that's generally where I start, and I assume the practitioners are going to be ahead of the papers. So studying, say, the coaches whose jobs are on the line, who are getting paid based on athlete performance, and assuming that a lot of that will eventually, if it holds up, make its way into, say, the peer-reviewed exercise science papers, but it's going to have a lag time of three to five years.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman19:58

      At least.

   3. TFTim Ferriss19:59

      At least.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman20:00

      Yeah.

   5. TFTim Ferriss20:00

      At least.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman20:00

      Yeah.

   7. TFTim Ferriss20:00

      Takes a long time.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman20:01

      Yeah, science is often very slow to catch up.

   9. TFTim Ferriss20:04

      Yeah.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman20:05

       Um,

5. 20:06 – 27:58

   Writing & Structured Thinking

   1. AHAndrew Huberman20:06

      you mentioned many things I have questions about. Um, you mentioned paying attention to the new, the very old, or the orphaned.

   2. TFTim Ferriss20:14

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman20:14

      Um, so interesting, and I just thought I'd, uh, tell you that when you sit down with a graduate student or a post-doc, and they're trying to f- come up with a project, uh, rarely do you say, you know, like, "What do you want to work on?" And they fire back, like, a really interesting question. Sometimes they do, but that's the rare person. More often than not, you'll send them to the literature, and they'll come back with, like, "Okay, there's this new technique that we can use to answer a set of questions better than ever before," or, "There's a very old theory I want to revisit," or, "There's this theory that no one pays attention to."

   4. TFTim Ferriss20:49

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman20:49

      In fact, we had one guest on here, Oded Rechavi, who is studying the, essentially, um, inheritance of traits, transgenerational inheritance of traits. It's a little bit, although different from Lamarckian ...

   6. TFTim Ferriss20:59

      Mm-hmm.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman20:59

      ... uh, uh, evolution, but it's a lot like that (laughs) um, in some ways. And, you know, these orphan theories that everyone assumed were wrong and that there is a basis for them. So, I think there's real genius in that, uh, analysis.

   8. TFTim Ferriss21:13

      Mm-hmm.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman21:14

      Um, it also struck me as you were, um, listing off some of your process circa the- the writing of The 4-Hour Body, that I and many other people are- are probably curious about what the operations around all that looked like. So are you, (clears throat) or were you at the time, like, waking up in the morning going, "Okay, I'm gonna take a walk and think about the new, the old, and the orphaned," or, um, (clears throat) "I'm gonna take a walk or sit in a chair and think about, like, what are the nerds doing right now? What are rich people doing right now?" And cobbling together awkward solutions.

   10. TFTim Ferriss21:45

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman21:45

       Was- was that exploration a structured practice for you? Or is this just something that, um, was the consequence of being Tim Ferriss waking up in the morning and just, like, leaning into that?

   12. TFTim Ferriss21:56

       (laughs) Yeah, totally.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman21:56

       Because I- I've experienced both, right?

   14. TFTim Ferriss21:58

       Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman21:58

       You know, but I think a lot of us are, uh, curious. I mean, th- there's a lot of mystique around you.

   16. TFTim Ferriss22:04

       (laughs)

   17. AHAndrew Huberman22:05

       Um, whether you like it.

   18. TFTim Ferriss22:06

       I'll do my best to dispel it. (laughs)

   19. AHAndrew Huberman22:07

       Whether- whether you like it or not. Um, it- it- i- i- it's there, and, um, and we're not trying to- to pry, but ...

   20. TFTim Ferriss22:14

       Pry away. (laughs)

   21. AHAndrew Huberman22:15

       Is the- is the establishment of structure for you something that's the consequence of structure in the first place? It's like, "Okay, now it's time to think."

   22. TFTim Ferriss22:24

       Mm-hmm.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman22:25

       Or do you just allow things to geyser up to the surface?

   24. TFTim Ferriss22:29

       I do both, and I would say that in the case of The 4-Hour Body, it's- it's a bit of an anomaly compared to my later books because I had recorded effectively every workout I'd done since age 16 as a competitive athlete. I just- I had a lot of records, and I kept copious notes on supplement use and everything imaginable. So I have what you might call hypergraphia. I just capture almost everything in writing. And that was very useful because at various points in time, let's just say I looked at a photograph of myself from, making this up, but 2004 and- and I think, "I would like to look and feel like that again. Okay, let me revisit my workout logs. Let me just replicate the preceding three to six months of workouts and look at my intake and my diet at the time." And lo and behold, more or less, I could replicate the same type of look and feel and performance. So I had a lot already logged that I thought was worth examining and putting under scrutiny, trying to replicate with other people. I do think replication is really important. And then when it came time to commit to writing the book, I thought about what types of mini books would be of great interest to me personally, and that book, like many of my other books, was written in such a fashion that it could be a choose-your-own-adventure book. Did not need to be read. In fact, in many ways, it shouldn't be read linearly from page one to the end. You get to pick and choose which chapters are of interest based on breath hold, vertical jump, endurance, hypertrophy, cold exposure for fat loss, whatever it might be. And then I began talking to people, and at the- at the very outer bounds of self-experimentation, at least in the Bay Area, it's a pretty small community. So you're one or two lily pads from just about everyone, and it's not accidental that I put myself in that environment in San Francisco specifically...... and more generally in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, because there's just a high service area for luck to stick to, because you have so many serendipitous encounters. You have so many people focusing on different disciplines. That, I think, was the fertilizer and the fertile ground for everything else, was actually the choosing the where of writing, physically being located in San Francisco. And then when I'm structuring things, maybe I'll get into some of the nitty-gritty, but I was using at the time, and I still like to use, a program called Scrivener, which is actually designed predominantly for screenwriting. It's used for many things now, novels and so on. It's expanded its reach quite a bit. But it allows you to gather research and all of your documents and drafts, so that you can move them around in very novel ways, so that you can view, say, a split pane of your research and what you're working on simultaneously, without having to toggle between a lot of different windows. And I was very promiscuous in my gathering of data. So I would gather from, say, the web using a web clipper from Evernote, which I was involved with as a company, and basically without bias, capture as much as possible, put three asterisks next to anything that I thought I really might want to revisit after I'd read something a second time, which I would always do. Then I could Control-F to find just three asterisks, because they don't occur much in normal writing, just like people, authors, writers will u- t- use TK, meaning find such-and-such a date. Data needs to be inserted later, but I- I don't want to interrupt the flow of writing, only put in TK because it doesn't really appear in natural English much. Uh, in terms of structured thinking, the way I approached it was, during that period of time in my life, it was interviews, tracking people down, conversations, emails, reading, so ingestion, let's just say, for the workday, then a break for training, and- and actually using myself as the human guinea pig for various things that had surfaced that might be on the docket.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman26:42

       Where were you training at that time?

   26. TFTim Ferriss26:43

       I-

   27. AHAndrew Huberman26:43

       San Francisco is not, uh, famous for amazing gyms. (laughs)

   28. TFTim Ferriss26:46

       It's not famous for amazing gyms. At the time, I was training mostly at a climbing gym called Mission Cliffs.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman26:53

       Oh, yeah.

   30. TFTim Ferriss26:53

       They didn't have much, but they had barbells.
6. 27:58 – 33:06

   Writing, Night Owls

   1. TFTim Ferriss27:58

      then after that, all right, shake off the cobwebs, (laughs) get the body moving, get the brain moving also, eat, and then I would actually focus on synthesis. So I would write generally from, let's call it 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM through to 4:00 or 5:00 AM, and I would ride the wave if I happened to be in the zone. If I weren't in the zone, I wouldn't force it, and I would try to get more sleep. But I have always performed best with my writing in those witching hours of, let's call it 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM. And my experience is that the writers I've interviewed, the- the writer friends I've become close with, if you look at when they made themselves, not what- necessarily what they do now, right, but what they did that eventually got them to escape velocity, they're almost always doing most of their writing very late at night or very early in the morning when the rest of the world or their social group is inactive.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman29:01

      Wow.

   3. TFTim Ferriss29:02

      Yeah.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman29:02

      And I say wow because, uh, of course all of this was prior to the publication of Matt Walker's-

   5. TFTim Ferriss29:08

      Yeah.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman29:08

      ... seminal book, Right? Why We Sleep.

   7. TFTim Ferriss29:10

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman29:10

      Which I really see as the book that shifted a lot of people, fortunately, from the "I'll sleep when I'm dead" mindset-

   9. TFTim Ferriss29:17

      (laughs)

   10. AHAndrew Huberman29:18

       ... uh, to, uh, you know, to really paying attention to it. And um, you know, I don't think Matt gets enough credit. I mean, there, uh, there's been a revision of a few points within that book, but the majority of it is just spot on and, um-

   11. TFTim Ferriss29:29

       Yeah, hyper-legitimate.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman29:31

       ... so good. And, um, and yet what you're describing is a schedule that, you know, starting to write at 9:00 PM and finishing up around 4:00 AM, but you talked about research earlier that day and training and eating.

   13. TFTim Ferriss29:41

       Then I would sleep.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman29:41

       So were there naps in there?

   15. TFTim Ferriss29:42

       I would sleep from say 4:00 to maybe 11:00 or 12:00. So I would be getting up later.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman29:49

       Mm-hmm.

   17. TFTim Ferriss29:49

       And I've had conversations with Matt about this, and there are night owls and morning larks, right?

   18. AHAndrew Huberman29:58

       Yeah, yeah.

   19. TFTim Ferriss29:59

       And there are certainly differences in the code, meaning the genetics, but that worked very, very well for me for a very long time. It is, however, a very challenging social schedule, so once you have a significant other, and every girlfriend I've ever had is (laughs) a morning person, if you want to spend time together, that schedule just does not work. So I made compromises later-

   20. ... for the social side of things. But if, if you put a gun to my head and said, "You need to write the best book humanly possible, that is your only priority outside of some exercise and fuel," I would follow the same schedule.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman30:35

       I know several, um, very successful podcasters, Lex Fridman, in particular, who, I think he's trying to follow a more normal schedule now, but he's pseudo-nocturnal, at least by my ex- my read.

   22. TFTim Ferriss30:46

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman30:47

       Um, and there are a couple other, uh, online content, uh, creators, um, Derek from More Plates More Dates, who's hyper-productive in his domain-

   24. TFTim Ferriss30:55

       Mm-hmm.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman30:56

       ... and is mostly nocturnal.

   26. TFTim Ferriss30:58

       Yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman30:58

       Um, and then as you're describing your, uh, writing routine and your overall routine, I was thinking that, you know, the, the great skateboarder, everyone knows Tony Hawk, who is obviously a great skateboarder, no doubt about that, but Rodney Mullen, who invented the ollie on street, the kick flip, the ollie, like, Rodney's basically nocturnal-

   28. TFTim Ferriss31:15

       Mm-hmm.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman31:16

       ... and has been for a long time, and would, you know, skateboard up and down the boardwalk in Santa Monica in the middle of the night because lack of distraction-

   30. TFTim Ferriss31:22

       Yeah.
7. 33:06 – 34:21

   Sponsor: AG1

   1. TFTim Ferriss33:06

      I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens, now called AG1, is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that covers all of your foundational nutritional needs. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or usually twice a day is that it gets me the probiotics that I need for gut health. Our gut is very important. It's populated by gut microbiota that communicate with the brain, the immune system, and basically all the biological systems of our body to strongly impact our immediate and long-term health. And those probiotics in Athletic Greens are optimal and vital for microbiotic health. In addition, Athletic Greens contains a number of adaptogens, vitamins, and minerals that make sure that all of my foundational nutritional needs are met, and it tastes great. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman, and they'll give you five free travel packs that make it really easy to mix up Athletic Greens while you're on the road, in the car, on the plane, et cetera, and they'll give you a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Again, that's athleticgreens.com/huberman to get the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3 K2.

8. 34:21 – 40:37

   Investigating Outliers; Social Media & Smartphones

   1. TFTim Ferriss34:21

      I'll mention one other, one other maybe shuristic that I use for trying to peek around corners, which is, if I find an example of an outlier, trying to find two or three, right? Because one is an exception, two is interesting, three is worth investigating. That's sort of how I think about it. And I recognize (soft music) 　 the plural of anecdote does not equal data. However, a lot of interesting discoveries begin as case studies or case histories.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman34:52

      Mm-hmm.

   3. TFTim Ferriss34:52

      And so there are some things we could talk about that, that I've paid attention to over the last few years that are not in The 4-Hour Body that I think are quite interesting and raise very, very exciting questions. Uh, but-

   4. AHAndrew Huberman35:05

      I'd love to hear about those.

   5. TFTim Ferriss35:06

      Yeah.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman35:06

      Yeah. And a- and along the lines of what I call anecdata-

   7. TFTim Ferriss35:09

      Yeah.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman35:09

      ... I mean, most of what we know about human memory stems from one patient, HM, who had his hippocampi-

   9. TFTim Ferriss35:16

      Interesting.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman35:16

       ... removed for, uh, epilepsy-

   11. TFTim Ferriss35:18

       Yeah.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman35:18

       ... and, of course, there have been millions probably, close to millions of studies in animals and humans focusing on the hippocampi, but, uh, most of what we know about human memory is from one guy.

   13. TFTim Ferriss35:28

       Yeah.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman35:28

       You know?

   15. TFTim Ferriss35:29

       Yeah, exactly. So, there's, there's, there's a lot to be examined. Not all of it will get funding for RCTs, let's be realistic. This is especially true if you're hoping for any type of directive data. And notice I'm not saying conclusive, but if, if you are a human who's going to be making decisions about diet, health, exercise, if you want any consensus, you're doomed. You'll be (laughs) you're not going to get any answers before you die. (laughs)

   16. AHAndrew Huberman35:54

       Can you say that twice-

   17. TFTim Ferriss35:55

       (laughs)

   18. AHAndrew Huberman35:55

       ... so that the internet can hear it extra loud and clear?

   19. TFTim Ferriss35:57

       Yeah.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman35:57

       For those of you that are arguing about nutrition on Twitter, like, it, it might actually be life wasted.

   21. TFTim Ferriss36:04

       Yeah.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman36:05

       I mean, I'm not being judgmental. I mean, I think that there's validity in lots of those pockets. There's stuff that's wrong in lots of those pockets.

   23. TFTim Ferriss36:12

       Yeah.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman36:12

       Um, there are diets that work extremely well, like, you know, 4-Hour Diet.

   25. TFTim Ferriss36:17

       Oh, yeah.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman36:17

       Or slow carb. I always call it the 4-Hour Diet, but-

   27. TFTim Ferriss36:19

       (laughs)

   28. AHAndrew Huberman36:19

       ... the slow carb diet.

   29. TFTim Ferriss36:20

       Yeah, yeah.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman36:21

       It works extremely well.
9. 40:37 – 45:09

   Scientific Literacy, Randomized Clinical Trials

   1. TFTim Ferriss40:37

      And I don't expect to get everything right at all. Uh, that would be crazy. (laughs) I'd like to think I'm not totally crazy, and it's very important if you are going to do self-experimentation or experimentation in small groups, which the quantified self-community did quite well and I think still does quite well, you should really make every effort to not fool yourself, which-

   2. AHAndrew Huberman41:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. TFTim Ferriss41:04

      ... is hard. It's, it's challenging at times, but read books like Bad Science. Read books like How to Lie with Statistics. Ensure that you are able to read studies well. You don't have to be the best in the world, but that you can, on some level, identify the strengths and weaknesses of studies. This doesn't take a long time. Certainly our friend, uh, Peter Attia, Dr. Peter Attia has Studying the Studies, which is a multiple part blog series dedicated to this. There are other ways to approach it. I took one of his podcasts, republished it on The Tim Ferriss Show because it talked about how to examine studies, what powering refers to, things like this. In the span of one or two weeks, you could really become literate with the f- building blocks of scientific literacy with respect to reading studies, and that gives you such an enormous life advantage. It's hard to overstate.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman41:58

      Yeah, I agree, and I also think that there are a lot of things that just simply will not ever be explored in a randomized control trial.

   5. TFTim Ferriss42:04

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman42:05

      Um, one of the things that Peter and I have talked about before is, uh, he texts me, you know, "What are your thoughts on BPC-157?" This is a gastric peptide that's now been synthesized, so people will inject it into a tissue that they're trying to heal or improve. Lots and lots of anecdata on BPC-157, making injuries heal faster, et cetera.

   7. TFTim Ferriss42:24

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman42:24

      Again, anecdata.

   9. TFTim Ferriss42:25

      Yep.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman42:26

       I've used it. I took an injection of it yesterday, in fact. Um... Peter basically is not a believer-

   11. TFTim Ferriss42:35

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman42:35

       ... because there is a lack of published data on this, which is perfectly fine. Or I should say he's, um, skeptical.

   13. TFTim Ferriss42:41

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman42:42

       Um, and so there's always that possibility of a placebo effect.

   15. TFTim Ferriss42:44

       Yeah.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman42:45

       But I don't think there will ever be a really nice controlled...... trial on BPC 157 because the financial incentives aren't there.

   17. TFTim Ferriss42:52

       Yeah.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman42:53

       And no smart graduate student is going to go do a thesis on this. That, so that's the reality. I mean, maybe one will do it now that we're having this conversation, but it just doesn't... The, the payout isn't there.

   19. TFTim Ferriss43:03

       Yeah.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman43:04

       So-

   21. TFTim Ferriss43:04

       And that last one you mentioned is one that people miss a lot. People doing these studies are people with careers, who are planning their careers.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman43:11

       Mm-hmm.

   23. TFTim Ferriss43:11

       And so they choose what they're going to invest time in very carefully. So that's another limiter on what will end up in our RCT-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman43:19

       Mm-hmm.

   25. TFTim Ferriss43:19

       ... or not, right? So, uh, I think that's good for people to hear. And as you get more involved with science, uh, and in my case, through a foundation, you know, ƒciSai Foundation, funding a lot of early stage science, you realize how expensive it is and how long it takes. It is a long-term investment, and if you are looking to make behavioral changes or modify aspects of yourself, cognitive, physical, psycho-emotional or otherwise, identifying interventions, right, options that seem to have some plausible upside, like there is a, a mechanism that might make sense in humans, if you feel fairly certain there's very limited downside, which should include talking to people who are presenting their results as anecdata.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman44:09

       Mm-hmm.

   27. TFTim Ferriss44:10

       Then maybe you consider using X, if you can cap your downside, right? And I recall, for instance, looking at trans-resveratrol specifically, not for longevity, but in potentially increasing endurance for 4-Hour Body. And I ended up testing it, and there's a funny story associated with that, didn't quite work out as planned, and I don't use it any longer, but what I experienced prior to actually finding this on forums was joint pain, elbow pain. The one most consistent side effect was what felt like tendinosis in the elbows. And then I went online, and I'd already done this, but I hadn't come across, I think it was the 500 group. People had been using 500 milligrams of trans-resveratrol daily for long periods of time, and one of the most common reported side effects was joint pain. And I was like, "Okay, I'm not willing to make that trade-off." (laughs)

   28. AHAndrew Huberman45:06

       Yeah.

   29. TFTim Ferriss45:07

       And, uh-

10. 45:09 – 50:46

    Supplement & Experiment Fails; Cold Exposure & Hyperthermia

    1. TFTim Ferriss45:09

    2. AHAndrew Huberman45:09

       Makes sense to me.

    3. TFTim Ferriss45:10

       Yeah.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman45:11

       I think, um, it would be fun if ever you were willing, that we could do, uh, a hybrid podcast on supplement fails.

    5. TFTim Ferriss45:19

       (laughs)

    6. AHAndrew Huberman45:21

       (laughs)

    7. TFTim Ferriss45:21

       I have some spectacular failures.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman45:22

       As do I.

    9. TFTim Ferriss45:23

       Yeah.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman45:23

        And I'm thinking, I'm thinking about a few of them. I mean, some that were really, um, like took me off course. Like there's one supplement, uh, called bulbine natalensis. This is ano- another one of these shrubs.

    11. TFTim Ferriss45:35

        S- sounds like an infection. (laughs)

    12. AHAndrew Huberman45:36

        I mean, this thing will really spike your testosterone and free testosterone. I'm talking back acne, like huge strength gains, aggression.

    13. TFTim Ferriss45:44

        (laughs)

    14. AHAndrew Huberman45:44

        It's really wild. And then after about 7 to 10 days, it all crashes and you go below baseline.

    15. TFTim Ferriss45:52

        Oh, sounds terrible.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman45:52

        Or yeah, even testicular pain, so it was unclear.

    17. TFTim Ferriss45:54

        Oh, oh.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman45:54

        So y- you, if you're a smart person, you halt use, right?

    19. TFTim Ferriss45:58

        Yeah, yeah.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman45:58

        So I can understand why people are skeptical of certain things, and then of course there are supplements that I'm a big fan of and that you're a big fan of. We talked about those things elsewhere. But, um, it might be fun to do a supplement fails podcast.

    21. TFTim Ferriss46:09

        Oh, I could, I-

    22. AHAndrew Huberman46:09

        If ever you were willing, that would be-

    23. TFTim Ferriss46:10

        Oh, I could do just experimental fails.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman46:12

        Oh, yeah.

    25. TFTim Ferriss46:13

        Yeah, N of 1 experimental fails.

    26. AHAndrew Huberman46:14

        Yeah.

    27. TFTim Ferriss46:15

        Which include things that people might not think about. For instance, 4-Hour Body had quite a bit of real estate dedicated to looking at things like PRP.

    28. AHAndrew Huberman46:25

        Mm-hmm.

    29. TFTim Ferriss46:25

        So platelet rich plasma, I think there's a role for it. It's not useful for everything, but for certain types of injury or repair, I think it's very interesting. Uh, but, uh, every time you get injected, this is where you have to be careful because there are very few free lunches out there. There's, there's usually some type of feedback loop (laughs) . Your system is very smart at auto-regulating things. This is, this is outside of that, a consideration that I hadn't made, which is every time you have an injection, there's a chance of an infection, particularly if the site, in my case was the elbow, and th- the injection was made for the PRP not quite where it should have been, slightly to the rear of the elbow where the s- the skin is very thick. And so it pushed, uh, staph bacteria...

    30. AHAndrew Huberman47:17

        Oh.
11. 50:46 – 1:03:35

    Slow Carb Diet & Adherence

    1. TFTim Ferriss50:46

    2. AHAndrew Huberman50:46

       Just a cue for people, I know that, um, you know, that slow carb diet r- um, achieved great prominence. In fact, it, wasn't it featured on, uh, or mentioned in an episode of Orange Is the New Black?

    3. TFTim Ferriss50:56

       I think it might have been.

    4. AHAndrew Huberman50:57

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss50:57

       It's made-

    6. AHAndrew Huberman50:58

       That's-

    7. TFTim Ferriss50:58

       ... it's made appearances on a handful of shows. (laughs)

    8. AHAndrew Huberman51:00

       Great. I realize that I've been referring to the slow carb diet several times throughout this discussion. So for those that aren't familiar with the slow carb diet, I know they can go look up what that is.

    9. TFTim Ferriss51:10

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman51:10

        But so that we can keep them here, uh-

    11. TFTim Ferriss51:12

        Sure.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman51:12

        ... for the rest of this discussion and not have to send them out and back, uh, just yet, um, could you give us just a brief top contour of what the slow carb diet is?

    13. TFTim Ferriss51:20

        Sure.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman51:21

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss51:21

        And so slow carb diet is intended to be a simple, easy to adhere to diet for people who have perhaps failed other diets that allows you to recompose your body, so improve muscle mass, decrease body fat percentage. And the rules are really simple, and that's part of what makes it work. It's not ideal for every sport and every circumstance, but broadly speaking, it works for a lot of people who've had trouble with dieting in the past. So rule number one, don't drink calories. That's it. Very simple. So black coffee, unsweetened tea, great. Juice, out. Anything with calories, out. You could add a little bit of heavy cream to your coffee, let's say. Uh, but that's, that's also bending the rules in a way that I don't like. So in the beginning it's like follow the rules so you can break them later. So in the beginning, let's just say you can't drink calories. Number two, don't eat anything white. Sounds pretty basic, right? Just don't eat anything that is the color of white or that could be white. Basically that means you're going to be avoiding starches and, uh, things that are, are similar to starches.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman52:29

        That includes things like oatmeal that are-

    17. TFTim Ferriss52:31

        That includes things like oatmeal.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman52:32

        Yeah.

    19. TFTim Ferriss52:32

        So roughly speaking, just avoiding things that are white or that could be white will get you pretty far. And yes, there are exceptions. Like cauliflower, fine, you can have cauliflower. But again, don't get fancy, right? It's, it's very easy to outsmart yourself when it comes to behavioral change. Keep it simple. So for at least two weeks, forget about the exceptions, right? (laughs) Don't drink calories. Don't eat anything white. And then eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. Okay. We got that. And then there are a few buckets you can choose from, right? So you have vegetables, beans and lentils, uh, and then some type of protein. So you're going to come up with meals that you can follow without deviating for a period of one or two weeks. Just come up with the same meals. And that's gonna sound boring, yes, but guess what? You do it already. You just might not realize it. And the, the lentils and the beans specifically as a pre-req, we can get into some of the reasons, but add a lot of fiber and also inhibit appetite, right? So that's actually a very important component of these meals. And there may be a handful of other rules, but those are the basics. And then the redemption is take one day off per week and just go fucking crazy. That's cheat day. There are some epic cheat days out there. Some I've captured for myself. And anything goes. When I say anything, I do mean anything. So if you want to consume multiple pizzas, pints of ice cream, whatever, indulge. Uh, I left one out. No fruit during the week. So avoid fruit, avoid fructose. So, you know, agave nectar. Anything that is sort of hidden sugar, avoid all that. Uh, so no added sweeteners obviously, but avoid, avoid fruit and fructose. And again, it's not gonna kill you. Guess what? If you're from (laughs) European ancestry, your ancestor did, did not have like blueberries in the middle of winter generally speaking, right? (laughs) So-

    20. AHAndrew Huberman54:39

        Mm-hmm.

    21. TFTim Ferriss54:39

        ... you'll, you'll be fine for a few weeks. Uh, and then there's that cheat day, and cheat day anything goes. The amount of damage you can do on cheat day is pretty limited. And there are ways you can mitigate that. There's a whole chapter called Damage Control in The 4-Hour Body. But focusing just on that diet and having one day off where you know you can do anything means when you are controlling yourself for those six days of the week...You're not giving up your favorite foods forever. You can even keep a list of all the things you want to eat on cheat day, and then you have free license to eat on cheat day. And, uh, that provides you with a release valve so that you can build in the cheating, as opposed to having it occur as a failure point. And there are a handful of other things there. If you have domino foods in the house, for instance, (laughs) if you eat a lot of almonds or mixed nuts, and you're just going to sit there compulsively eating them while you're sitting at your laptop, don't have what I call domino foods in the house, which are going to really create some portion control issues. But broadly speaking, don't drink calories, don't eat things that are white, take from three categories and build your meals out, and those are the meals that you follow. Do not eat fruit or fructose, and then cheat one day a week. And Saturday's a nice day for cheat day for most folks. And, uh, just to answer some questions people are gonna have, no, that doesn't mean 24 hours, so you can spread it out over two days. That will actually set you back. But the amount of fat that you can store in a handful of sittings over 24 hours, which w- legitimately is more like 12 to 18 hours, pretty limited. Uh, so that's the slow carb diet.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman56:20

        Great. Thank you for that. I also want to ask, is it okay to take the day after cheat day and fast or do one meal that day? When I followed the slow carb diet, I benefited from it tremendously. I lost fat, gained muscle, tons of energy, sleeping great, uh, required less caffeine-

    23. TFTim Ferriss56:39

        Mm-hmm.

    24. AHAndrew Huberman56:40

        ... all sorts of wonderful things, stable blood sugar. I felt so, so good. Um, really enjoyed the cheat days.

    25. TFTim Ferriss56:45

        (laughs)

    26. AHAndrew Huberman56:45

        I really, really enjoyed the cheat days.

    27. TFTim Ferriss56:47

        So fun.

    28. AHAndrew Huberman56:47

        So much fun. Um, at some point, there's some gastric distress that comes from, you know, not regulating intake-

    29. TFTim Ferriss56:52

        (laughs)

    30. AHAndrew Huberman56:53

        ... um, which led me to not want to eat the next day.
12. 1:03:35 – 1:08:48

    Morning Protein Intake; Fasting

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:35

       uh, j- sorry to interrupt you. One thing that I really like about it is that, um, many, uh, variants on caloric restriction, which is 'cause laws of thermodynamics definitely apply.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:03:46

       Yeah, for sure.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:46

       We're not, we're not trying to say they don't. Um, but one of the issues with a lot of things, including intermittent fasting, which I sort of do some variant of 'cause I'm not really hungry to eat until about 11:00, I like to train in the morning if I can, et cetera, is that they can sometimes prevent best performance in terms of especially resistance training, high-intensity resistance training. So very low carb diets, I've tried them.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:04:09

       Yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:09

       Um, even if you're paying attention to, you know, other ways to restock glycogen, it... Performance drops off. Whereas with slow carb diet, I feel like I can think, I can work, I can exercise, I can sleep. Like, everything just works well. But there's one thing in it that I wanted to raise, that I, when I heard this, I thought, "There's no way this is true," which was, uh, making sure that you get 30 or so grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:04:32

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:32

       And I thought, "How can that be? Like, how can adding protein early in the day actually make a difference?" And it really did work. I was... I still track my numbers. So in terms of dropping body fat percentage, increasing muscle.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:04:43

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:43

       It really does work. Now, whether or not that's simply because it's offsetting food intake that I would have, um, food that I would have taken in later in the day, I don't know.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:04:51

        Yeah.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:51

        I mean, I don't, I'm not gonna make myself my own control experiment to the point that I drive myself crazy.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:04:55

        Yeah.

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:56

        But, um, it really does work-

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:04:57

        Yeah.

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:04:58

        ... uh, quite well, um, to get past sticking points-

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:05:00

        Yeah.

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:00

        ... to just get that 30 grams of protein early. So sort of violate the int- the, uh, um, time-restricted feeding component deliberately with some protein in the morning-

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:05:08

        Yep.

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:08

        ... then still train and do all the other things and, you know, carry on as usual. And it, it's just so, it seems so peculiar, like eating more and, and losing body fat.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:05:17

        Yeah.

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:05:17

        But it works.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:05:18

        Yeah, it's counterintuitive, and a lot of approaches can work for a lot of different people, right? To state the obvious. But this particular aspect of the slow carb diet is helpful for, let's just say, the majority of the people in that thousand-person sample I was talking about, the hypothetical pull from different parts of, say, the US or anywhere, because it, it, it seems to help with a few things. First, there's just the thermic effect of food, and for protein, there's a greater thermic effect. You also have, and I think there's, there's decent... At the time, there was decent literature to support this, so I don't know if it's changed, that the protein intake along those lines has an appetite-suppressing effect. So the, the net daily calories consumed tends to be less when someone has a higher-protein meal earlier in the day. And last but not least, I will say one of the risks, and there are many people who execute well on this, but you have to be very meticulous, which is true of the ketogenic diet as well. So it, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble if you do it 60% right or 70% right. You really-

    23. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:27

        Been there.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:06:28

        Yeah.

    25. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:28

        Been there.

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:06:28

        You can get yourself in a-

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:28

        Been there, massive psoriasis. I mean, my scalp-

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:06:31

        Yeah.

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:06:31

        ... you know, sloughing off when th-

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:06:33

        (laughs)
13. 1:08:48 – 1:09:53

    Sponsor: InsideTracker

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:08:48

       I'd like to take a quick break and thank our sponsor, InsideTracker. InsideTracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you better understand your body and help you reach your health goals. I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done for the simple reason that many of the factors that impact your immediate and long-term health can only be assessed with a quality blood test. The problem with a lot of blood and DNA tests out there, however, is that they'll give you information about certain lipid markers or hormone markers, but no information about what to do with all of that data. InsideTracker makes it very easy to look at your levels of hormones, metabolic factors, lipids, et cetera, and then to assess what sorts of behavioral, nutritional, supplementation, or perhaps other interventions you might want to use in order to bring those numbers into the ranges that are optimal for your health. For this week only, the week of June 19th, 2023, InsideTracker is offering a buy one get one free on their ultimate plan. This is their best discount of the year. You can get this offer by going to inside tracker dot com slash huberman. Again, that's inside tracker dot com slash huberman.

14. 1:09:53 – 1:21:43

    Power of Place; Building Your Network & Volunteering

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:09:53

       Thanks for, uh, revisiting some of The 4-Hour Body and Slow Carb Diet and elaborating on, um, some of the process that went into that. And I think, uh, creators of all kinds, thinkers of all kinds, and people who are interested in the contents of The 4-Hour Body are going to be, uh, very grateful for that information. I certainly am fascinated by your process. Um, one of the things that you mentioned along the lines of process was, you know, the power of places and where one happens to live. I think there's a, a essay by Paul Graham that talks about this. It's a little outdated. Yeah.

    2. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:27

       Um, you know, and it talks about the messages that you, um, the tacit messages of being in certain cities. I think it was, you know, like Boston, "You're not smart enough." Um...

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:10:37

       (laughs)

    4. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:38

       Uh, what was it? It was New York, uh, "You're not powerful enough." Uh...

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:10:42

       (laughs)

    6. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:42

       And not you, obviously. (laughs) I'm, uh, just thinking of, um, or, "You should be more powerful," is the message, like the tacit message. Um, Los Angeles, um, uh, "What you're, uh, what you're doing, people aren't paying attention, uh, paying enough attention to it." Something like that.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:10:55

       Yeah, totally.

    8. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:55

       Like, the tacit messages that, these are stereotypes about cities. Certainly, cities change. Um, the role of places is an interesting one. Like, y- you know, you mentioned, you know, small gathering, Kevin Kelly's house, quantified self, and I think for people who don't know people like that, right?

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:11:11

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:11

        Um, maybe we could get your thoughts on, you know, how would one think about where to live and, and maybe even curating their own gatherings-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:11:20

        Mm-hmm.

    12. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:20

        ... useful gatherings? Because it's not that, uh, I have to imagine it's not that you guys sat back and you're like, "I'm Tim Ferriss." And he's like, "I'm Kevin Kelly. Let's have a gathering so we can talk about it in a few years on a podcast."

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:11:31

        Yeah.

    14. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:31

        This stuff happens-

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:11:32

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:33

        ... that word, you know, it's a dangerous word, organically.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:11:35

        Yeah.

    18. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:36

        Um, when people who have common interests decide to get together and talk and listen and brainstorm. And I'm yet to do that in a, you know, with good people and not have something really incredible come out of it. Not necessarily that day.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:11:52

        Yup.

    20. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:52

        But looking five years, looking back five years later and just going, "God, that was really worthwhile."

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:11:57

        Totally.

    22. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:57

        Yeah.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:11:59

        A few thoughts in no particular order. I would say the first is, it depends a- my recommendations depend a lot on where you are in the arc of your career and life. If you are in full growth hyperdrive mode and you are trying to build both yourself and your capabilities in a very concentrated way where you're not necessarily focused on family, you maybe have fewer obligations, then if you're serious, I think many people should consider moving to an area of high density-

    24. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:35

        Mm-hmm.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:12:35

        ... for a period of time. It could be three months. It could be six months. Could be longer. But putting yourself in a New York or an LA or a San Francisco or a Chicago, or as new places develop, I'll, I'll give you one you might not expect, say an Ottawa, Canada, where Shopify is based and the presence and growth of Shopify has spawned an entire ecosystem of startups. So there may be options outside of the usual cast of characters. Pittsburgh and Duolingo, similar effect. So there are more options than people might recognize. But taking a journey and placing yourself...

    26. ... in a place where you can be in a very active pinball machine, where you may interact serendipitously with many different people from many different worlds, I think is, is, is hard to overstate the value of. And my drive and my filtering function, let's just say, 'cause when I first got to the Bay Area, nobody cared about me. I was nobody. I was driving my mom's used minivan hand-me-down that had the seat stolen out of the back. It looked terrible.

    27. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:48

        Were you in the, were you in the South Bay area?

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:13:49

        I was, I was working in San Jose. Yeah, uh-

    29. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:52

        I mean, no disrespect to San Jose. I'm from the South Bay.

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:13:55

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 3:39:08